Isis,
named after the Egyptian goddess of motherhood and fertility, is a programming
language that is tailored in a number of ways, both in syntax and internal
operation, to support the development of demanding responsive media applications.
It is being developed at the MIT Media Lab, where over the past four years
it has been used to build several major prototypes and demonstrations, ranging
from distributed telepresence systems to hyperlinked television soap operas
to interactive art installations. In this talk I will introduce the language,
which looks a bit like Scheme but is quite different underneath, and discuss
the ups and downs of its design. I will also show some videotapes documenting
projects created with the language.